Miniatures News

The Hat site has sprung back in to life for those who have not visited it in a while, worth a look. Anyway, lots for us to influence , crowdfunding for the British dragoons, and we are being asked for views on ACW figures, Napoleonic Austrians / Hungarians , plus what we would like to see made next. Good to see life being breathed back in to Hat, so take a look for yourselves.

Beano Boy wrote:It is not a free Forum at `Hat Industries',that was,or am I mistaken? BB

Not sure what you mean by 'free forum' Paul, I didn't pay to join it and I've never been invited to make a voluntary contribution. And you don't actually need to register to post there you can post freely as a guest.

The forum IS run and payed for by a manufacturer, like the Strelets forum. it's the manufacturers interface with their customers and the focus is, obviously, on their products. It's the place to go to find news about their sets and make suggestions on how you think new sets should be made.

Because people were getting into stupid but entertainig fights over nothing much the old forum introduced a lot of rules about what you could post. Which I thought was unnescessary but that's the way it was. On the new forum the 'General' section says "You can talk about anything here" and, so far, I haven't been censored for mentioning Strelets or Benno's or any other non HaT subject. For instance someone asked where he might find mule train figures and I posted a ridiculously long list of other manufacturers products with PSR links and that wasn't objected to.

The forum is as free as I think it needs to be but it is a manufacturers forum and it doesn't pretend to be otherwise.

For a forum that's not connected to any particular manufacturer I recomend Benno's .

Correct BB. It's a ProBoards forum so it is free. Unfortunately Hat haven't bothered to take advantage of the tools available to them so it's a pretty poor set up with everything lumped into the general forum. A six year old could improve it immensely given 30 minutes

The new hat forum came about as a result of increased cost and limited storage capacity on the old one, so free to use not free to own. I too preferred the older format easier to find and read new posts, but thing change and that is life. The mods are just that moderators with the limited capacity to remove posts if needs be, and then usually the posts in question are from Trolls. But my original post was to promote the current crowdfunding initiative and to highlight the positive activity on the Hat site, and that has to be good news for the hobby, who would not want to see Hat as prolific once again as they have been in the past.

Zed1 , well someone could tell them that, but will it change anything ? the sculpts were done years ago, and the time to ask for changes was then. So the offer is the existing sculpts done in 1/72 , support it and they are made, don`t support it and they are not made, and in that case we can ask and hope another manufacturer makes a set.....and how many sets of these have been made in the last fifty odd years of the hobby ? answer: none, 0 ,not one. So my advise is if you want British Dragoons 1808-14 support this, because you may not get another chance to get them.

Actually I can remember although a few years ago, and Hat have always asked before making any figures, just like they are now asking about, ACW command , Napoleonic Austrians and Hungarians , 7 yw Austrians , if would be fairer to say no other manufacturer asks for this much customer input before making figures. I cannot comment on if or why your posts were deleted, but I find it hard to believe they were ,or your emails ignored, but as our moderator has said lets stick to the subject ......crowdfunding Napoleonic British dragoons in 1/72.

zulu`s 1000`s of em wrote: lets stick to the subject ......crowdfunding Napoleonic British dragoons in 1/72.

I'm not a great fan of crowdfunding but if the two choices are crowdfunding or no figures, it's pretty clear which way you should jump.

I appreciate the comment that units on standing or walking horses might be better. Which horses from other sets could you substitute to meet this demand? From the look of the line drawings of the Peninsular cavalry figures, they could either sit on such horses as they are or after a little modifying not look out of place on less active mounts.